


prana

by traveller



Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-10
Updated: 2009-10-10
Packaged: 2017-10-15 13:14:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/161146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/traveller/pseuds/traveller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><cite>yoga and Zach and Chris.</cite></p>
            </blockquote>





	prana

It is breath as much as it is movement, or lack of movement. To control the body is simple. Control the breath and you may learn to control the mind and spirit, and in so controlling, to let go.

Tadasana, he stands. He is immovable. The mountain is anchored to the earth, its energy is his energy, enormous. Hips under shoulders. Feet under hips. He breathes.

He brings his hands together, namaste, spreads his arms and then brings them back together over his head, reaching for the sky. He looks up, eyes closed against the sun, feeling his spine lengthen, the bones falling into proper place.

"What is it called?" Chris asks quietly, sitting in the shade of the house, sukhasana. Zach moves into the next posture, the next and the next before answering.

"Surya namaskara. The Salute to the Sun."

He had thought that having Chris watch would be awkward, that his concentration would falter and his breaths would come out of turn. Worse, he'd feared that he would turn it into a performance, that he would show off, toss in a shirsasana where none was needed just to prove that he could. Instead there is nothing but peace.

He finishes the right side and settles to tadasana again. Namaste. Begin again.

The physical is not a challenge, the physical falls away as he moves, stretching and holding each asana with ease. The sun is on his shoulders, the grass brushes the soles of his feet. If sweat rolls down his spine, beads across his chest, he doesn't feel it. There's nothing but breath.

His breath.

Chris' breath.

It shouldn't be loud enough to hear, it isn't at all, but Zach feels it, in time with his own. Even with his eyes closed he knows that Chris is pulling in air when he does, letting it out when he does. He knows that Chris' chest is rising, waiting, falling, even as his own does.

In the completion he is facing Chris, bringing his hands back together. He opens his eyes to find Chris mirroring the gesture, as serene as if Zach's patio were a bodhi tree.

"It means, _the divine in me recognizes the divine in you_." Zach bows slightly, from the waist. "Namaste."

"Namaste," Chris echoes, word and movement alike, then breaks, unfolding himself and rising. He toes his shoes off and joins Zach on the grass, bouncing on his toes like a prizefighter. "Show me how to do it, now?"

Zach laughs, breaks his own stillness. "You were doing it," he says, waving at the spot where Chris had sat. "You were doing it and you didn't even know it."

"Sitting on my ass isn't yoga. You were doing yoga."

"Sitting and breathing properly is the entire foundation of yoga." Zach shrugs. "Anyways, I'm not a good teacher. You should take a class."

"A class won't—" Chris stops, holds up his hands. "You know. It'll be full of botoxed producers' third wives."

"Who's been botoxed, the producers or their wives?"

"How the elephant got in my pajamas I have no idea," Chris answers.

"That's not what you were going to say." Zach's shoulders are beginning to prickle now, he can feel the sweat soaking into the waist of his pants. Chris' face is very close.

"It won't feel the same." A beat, and Chris shakes his head. "You _mean_ it. You respect it. You know why you move like that, why you bend one way, and, and turn another."

"There are those classes, too," Zach says. "Honest, respectable yogis. I can get you some numbers."

Chris doesn't answer. Chris, he realizes, is still breathing with him.

"Okay," Zach says, putting his hands on Chris' shoulders. "I'll teach you what I know."


End file.
